


The Place Unhallowed

by tepidspongebath



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Blood, Established Relationship, M/M, Thoughts of Suicide, Vampire Bites, Vampire Sherlock, exchangelock, heavy references to Dracula, implied impending character death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-01
Updated: 2015-08-12
Packaged: 2018-02-11 07:47:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2059878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tepidspongebath/pseuds/tepidspongebath
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"It’s not quite the two neat little pinpricks of legend, is it?” he said, quickly covering the mark again. “Though those happen too, usually when repeated feeding is intended; it doesn’t pay to alarm your livestock if you don’t want them to be aware of you. But this – this was vengeance. Punishment.”</p><p>“Or he could just be a cruel bastard.” Sherlock almost smiled at that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my shamefully late Exchangelock gift for [Skwurly](http://skwurly.tumblr.com/). I apologize for the lateness - I dithered between ideas for too long - and I hope it satisfies.

_“I suppose it is thus in old times that one vampire meant many: just as their hideous bodies could only rest in sacred earth, so the holiest love was the recruiting sergeant for their ghastly ranks.” -_ Johnathan Harker, Bram Stoker’s _Dracula_

 

* * *

_  
_

The bite was huge and livid on the side of Sherlock’s neck, and John winced when he finally pulled his hand away to reveal the uneven circle of tooth marks, the canines slightly more pronounced than the rest. It made even more eerie and unnatural by the fact that there was no blood to be seen on or around the wound, though it was fresh. Sherlock smirked.

“It’s not quite the two neat little pinpricks of legend, is it?” he said, quickly covering the mark again. “Though those happen too, usually when repeated feeding is intended; it doesn’t pay to alarm your livestock if you don’t want them to be aware of you. But this – this was vengeance. Punishment.”

“Or he could just be a cruel bastard.” Sherlock almost smiled at that, and John took the opportunity to pull his hand away again. “Let me see that.”

Sherlock shrank back in his armchair by the fireplace. He was still wearing his coat, though his scarf had been abandoned earlier in the evening. “You don’t have to patch me up.”

“I have to do _something_.”

“You couldn’t have done anything, John. He would have killed you before you stopped it, and that would have been worse.”

“Like that makes it better,” said John bitterly, sinking to his knees next to Sherlock’s seat. He felt more helpless now that the truth of the bite was sinking in, with Sherlock pale and shaken and so obviously weak from blood loss, than when it had actually happened.

They had found one of the last caches of Moriarty’s boxes of earth that afternoon, after months of searching, after the two years Sherlock had spent dismantling his network from the bottom up. It had been quick work to sterilize them, with holy water and murmured prayers, so the vampire would no longer be able to use them as his sanctuary, but there had just been two of them (Lestrade could not always leave his work at New Scotland Yard, and Molly Hooper had a task of her own), and neither had anticipated Moriarty’s appearance.

He had gone for Sherlock, of course, seizing him by the neck and biting him there before John could so much as reach for his crucifix or his gun. He had looked John in the eye as he drank, with Sherlock struggling weakly in his grasp like a kitten trying to get free of a hand putting it in a sack, and he had whispered something to his victim. John had seen his red lips move, seen the blood running down his chin and neck, but he hadn’t heard the words. And then James Moriarty was gone, dissipated, for all John knew, into dust particles or air molecules, for the sun had set by then, and his kind could move unhindered during the night.  

At first, John had wondered why he hadn’t killed them then and there, with the part of his mind that wasn't occupied with dragging Sherlock, conscious but weak ( _like tea after the teapot had been watered_ , John had thought), out of the house and getting them home without Sherlock’s remarkable powers of cab-summoning. It was fast beginning to dawn on him that this was much more cruel. Sherlock’s next words drove the point home.

“When I die—” he began.

“No.” The word could have been chipped from stone. This was not something that John wanted to hear.

Sherlock gave an irritated hiss, waved off John’s interruption. “When I die, you know what you has to be done.”

“A stake of mountain ash through your heart, garlic in your mouth, your head lopped off, and a branch of wild rose over the coffin for good measure.” John shook his head. “I don’t think so, Sherlock.”

“You want me to be like _him_?” thundered Sherlock. It was his first outburst since they’d gotten back to Baker Street, the first time he’d been anything but calm, and John’s heart twisted at the pain and panic in his voice.

“You won’t be.”

“Your confidence is touching,” Sherlock sneered, retreating into sarcasm, hot and withering. “If I become one of the Undead, it will be my body and my mind, but it won’t be _me_. It will be a creature, foul and evil and murderous, and if you think it will resist the urge to drink living blood just because I used to wear its bones, you will be sorely mistaken. It will be my _mind_ ” – Sherlock’s voice nearly broke on the word – “but I won’t be driving it, don’t you see?”

“I know that,” said John quietly, laying his hand over Sherlock’s where the man had a death-grip on the chair arms. “But you’ll have me.”

Unusually, Sherlock wasn’t lightning quick on the uptake, and, under ordinary circumstances, John would have been happy to poke fun at the way his nose wrinkled in consternation. When he finally realized what was being offered, however, he went even paler, and his eyes ( _beautiful eyes_ , John thought, wondering if they’d change too when the Change came) went wide and wild.

“John,” he breathed, clutching urgently at the shoulder of the doctor’s jacket. “You are _not_ saying that. You aren’t even _thinking_ it.”

“Yes, I am.” John went up, and threw his arms around him, trying to be careful of his wound while holding him desperately close, as though he could give his life and warmth to Sherlock that way. “You’re an idiot if you think I’m going to let you go through that alone.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The appearance of Sherlock’s bite is inspired by Mina Harker’s in _The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen_ , and, while I have played fast and loose with vampire lore, most of what I’ve used here comes, of course, from Bram Stoker’s _Dracula_. There will be more of this in just a bit.


	2. Chapter 2

_“You think you’ll beat me with your little schemes, your little games? You would play your little brain against mine? Oh, you’ve been_ annoying _– yes, you have – but you’re so tiny, just a little fly buzzing around my head.” Cold fingers tightened on the back of his neck, forcing his head back. “Time is on my side, Sherlock. I’ve had centuries to prepare, and I can wait centuries more. You might – just might – drive me out now, but I’ll be back, bigger and badder when your dream team is dust and ashes. I’ll win, you see. This is just rubbing it in.” Rank breath filled his nostrils over the smell of dead earth, turning his stomach. He felt Moriarty smile against his neck. “Give my love to John.”_

Sherlock woke with a start, the nightmare echoing uncomfortably in his skull. It was bitterly cold, and there was a foul taste of blood in his mouth. He ran his tongue against his gums and the insides of his cheeks, trying ( _hoping_ ) to find if he’d cut himself while he slept. Nothing. That was more than a bit Not Good.

He was not in his room, or even in the flat. Sleepwalking then, he thought as he pushed himself off of the ground. Not a good sign for him, but it was proof that the wards at 221B still held, and that he was not yet so far gone as to be made to remove them or to invite the Undead in. _Small favors_ , he thought. Compulsion from the vampire was the only possible explanation of the facts: Sherlock was not a habitual sleepwalker, and if he was just beginning to form the habit, it was next to impossible for him to somnambulate to – he blinked, trying to see through the early morning mist – an alley two streets away from home the first time around, and in only his pyjamas and dressing gown at that. Barefoot too. The walk back to Baker Street was going to be singularly uncomfortable. He touched the wound on his neck. It was tender, and, while he would need to see it to be sure of its condition, he knew the vampire would not have gone to the trouble of luring him out without seeking refreshment from his veins after the exertion. He certainly felt drained.

Mary had been much the same towards the end. He recognized the symptoms. They were only to be expected, though for him they had come sooner rather than later.

The blood in his mouth was more worrying. It was exactly Moriarty’s style to leave him something grotesque to puzzle over. _I like to watch you dance_ , he’d said with someone else’s voice, years ago, before Sherlock had an inkling of what he was dealing with. He grimaced. Well, then he was going to dance. He pulled his dressing gown about him, and began to walk. _Think_.

He would not have sought out a victim at this stage, barely two days after receiving the bite himself. He could have been compelled to do so, but to what end? Moriarty had already framed him once for much more mundane crimes, and thus could be counted on not use that line of attack again. There would be no families found bloody in their beds with the marks of his teeth on them. That would be too predictable, too boring, and the vampire was anything but redundant.

Something else, then.

A dog began to howl in one of the houses he passed. In one of the windows, a curtain was raised and hastily allowed to drop again. Sherlock touched the corner of his mouth. It was fortunate that it was still early enough that no one was about to be alarmed by his appearance. He would hardly have taken a neat little drink, and, yes, his fingers came away smudged with red. There wasn’t much of it on his face, which was a small mercy. But there were stains on the neck of his shirt.

He was behind Baker Street now, his own territory. He could stop, breathe, _think_. The ladder of the fire escape was down, so he must have used that, exiting through his bedroom window. Flakes of paint on his fingers and pressure marks across his palms bore that out and – Sherlock frowned, examining his arms. There were red marks on the outside of his wrists, such as those that would be made if his hands were held together in a crushing grip.

So. While asleep and vulnerable, the vampire had called him out of his flat, his hands had been bound, his mouth and chin wiped clean after he’d been made to drink…

Sherlock retched, doubled over next to Mrs. Hudson’s bins, and brought up a gobbet of blood.

He remembered now. He’d not truly forgotten, but he hadn’t been wholly conscious, hadn’t filed it in his mind palace, where it belonged next to the nightmare of the first bite. In the alley, hidden by fog summoned for the purpose, his hands had been held away from him at full tension, while his mouth was forced to the bleeding cut on Moriarty’s chest. Sherlock’s stomach heaved again.

The vampire’s baptism. Receiving the bite made would make him one of the Undead, but drinking of Moriarty’s blood put him in the vampire’s thrall. Moriarty had but to think a command, and Sherlock would have to obey, if he had to cross oceans and continents to do it.

The ordinary form of compulsion, he could resist: if sleep was dangerous he could do without it, he’d had practice. But this…this made him a risk, an incalculable danger. He would destroy himself now, but he knew better: that would be an even more disastrous route. Or he could force the others to do it. Perhaps if he acted the beast, pretended to attack one of them ( _Mrs. Hudson came to mind, they were all extremely protective of her_ ), that would alarm them enough to give him the ultimate mercy before he could be forced to turn against them.

No. That wasn’t right. He was lightheaded, suffering from blood loss, letting his transport rule him, and he was slow, stupid. He coughed, spat out another red mouthful. That was an idiotic idea, it would never work. Molly could be counted on to do the right thing when he Changed after death, but not before. Lestrade would hesitate until the danger became real, which would defeat the point of shamming. And John would not harm him. John would volunteer – had, in fact, already volunteered – to follow him into the terrible unknown that lay between the grave and a vampire’s Undeath.

If he asked it, John would bare his throat for the bite. Not having to lose him was the only thing that made the prospect of the Change bearable but it was an ugly, selfish thought. What made it truly terrible was that it was _Sherlock_ who was willing to drag John Watson beyond death – he couldn’t blame it on the creature he would become, not yet. This was all him, and wholly monstrous.

Sherlock reached for the bottom rung of the fire escape, pulled himself up (it took some effort), and began to climb. Those thoughts were unhelpful, and he boxed them up, storing them behind the memories of the bites. He needed to tell John all that had happened while he still could, and they had to let the others know. Secrecy, at this point, would be foolish in the extreme.

His bedroom window was still open, and it was a simple matter to slip back inside. The garlic rubbed on the sash did not hinder him, but he burned his hand on the rosary beads looped around the lock.


	3. Chapter 3

The scream cut through the morning stillness like a knife, and John was on his feet and halfway down the stairs before it died away completely. He’d been lying awake for quite some time, listening for the clatterings and bangings of Sherlock moving about downstairs, and he’d been foolishly glad of the unusual quiet, thinking that Sherlock was getting some real rest at last. He swore, blaspheming viciously even as he pulled out the tiny silver crucifix on its chain from beneath his shirt. Of course something had gone wrong, it was too much to hope for two bloody days to go by without disaster when your adversary was an ancient evil who had his own special brand of fucked-up crazy. But, damn it, he thought as he readied his Browning, whatever scale of fairness you chose to measure against, wasn’t Sherlock’s bite disaster enough for a lifetime?   

Apparently not.  John threw open the door to the first floor bedroom, and found Sherlock alone, crumpled on the floor beneath the open window. He was trying to get up, but the way he held his right hand close to his chest kept him off balance, and his breathing was painful to hear.

“Jesus,” hissed John, rushing over to him. Sherlock looked even worse up close: paler than usual, which made the dark circles under his eyes and the unnatural redness of his lips stand out in stark relief, and his skin was cool, clammy under the doctor’s hands as he tried to help him up. And _tried_ was as far as he got, for Sherlock’s knees buckled and his feet went out from under him, and it became easier to sink to the floor with an armful of consulting detective than to keep him upright.

He could see the bite above the bunched-up folds of Sherlock’s dressing gown. The edges of the marks were white and worn-looking, and John sucked in a breath, willing himself to remain calm, for his heart to stop its panicked hammering in his chest where Sherlock could surely feel it, with his head leaning against John’s shoulder as it was. There were only so many reasons for those wounds to have that appearance – only _one_ viable explanation, really, given the circumstances – and Sherlock confirmed it.

“Sleepwalking,” he said faintly. “Like Mary.”

Suddenly John didn’t need to worry about his heartbeat. His heart had frozen into a hard lump of ice between his lungs, and it grew colder, cracked around the edges as Sherlock haltingly related what had happened, or what he knew of it. Yes, it sounded like Mary – he didn’t need to be reminded of the awful way the vampire could make her do as he willed while she slept. They’d had to keep watch over her in a sort of nightly vigil, for all the good that had done in the end. On the last night, she had torn the wreath of garlic flowers from the window with her own hands, injuring Sherlock quite badly when he tried to stop her from going to the creature ( _Mary had known how to injure people, oh yes_ ).

He held Sherlock tighter at the thought of what might come if things progressed as they had for her, but that proved to be a mistake. Sherlock made a panicked noise, flinched, and John thought that he’d been hurt elsewhere until he saw how he was staring fixedly at the little crucifix hanging from John’s neck. It was now an inch or so from Sherlock’s nose.   

“I already have proof that it wasn’t all in my head,” said Sherlock carefully, holding up his right hand. “I’d rather not scar my face to test it further.”

Seared onto his palm was a cluster of angry red marks. John could make out the circular imprints of rosary beads and the top half of a cross burned into the flesh as though they had been made by white hot metal. No wonder he’d screamed.   

“Shit. That’s from the window, isn’t it? Sorry. I am so sorry.” One-handed, he tucked the crucifix back under his shirt. Some of the tension went out of Sherlock once it was out of sight.

“Unclean. Tainted.” He said the words like he was trying them on for size, and half-turned so that he could look up at John. “That’s what I am. I drank his blood. I’m not _safe_.”

“Yes, you are.” John pressed his lips to Sherlock’s forehead. “I’ve got you.”

Sherlock glared at him. “That’s not what I meant.”

“I know,” said John simply. “Can you stand? We need to stick that under running water.”

Sherlock’s mouth twisted. “I doubt that’ll help.”

“It’s worth a try. Unless you’ve rigged it so that we have holy water running from the taps? I didn’t think so.”


	4. Chapter 4

Dressed and clean, Sherlock felt more like himself, but still drained and colorless. He hated it. He was unaccustomed to weakness: contrary to what John seemed to believe, he knew his physical limitations, and very seldom allowed himself to come to the end of his reserves when he still had need of them. The looks he was getting were the worst of it. To a man (and woman), his co-conspirators kept giving him what he supposed they thought were surreptitious glances while John related what had happened, as if they were afraid Sherlock would either keel over senseless or sprout fangs and bat’s wings. Probably the former, he conceded. They were not complete imbeciles, after all.

It hadn’t been quite so insufferable when it had just been John, but then he would suffer much from John that he would not bear from anyone else. This morning’s coddling, for instance. Sherlock could think of no other way to describe what John had done for him after the strictly necessary had been taken care of. There had been cold running water for the rosary burn, sterile gauze for that and the bite on his neck, and antiseptic cream for his scraped feet, and those had all needed doing; but there had also been warm hands holding him up, helping him out of his filthy clothes and into the shower, and soothing words, with the occasional curse mixed in, murmured gently into his ear.

John had even made him eat breakfast while they waited for Molly and Lestrade, who had been summoned with all possible haste (“If you don’t eat,” he’d said, shoving a bowl of some form of porridge under Sherlock’s nose, “you can’t work your best.”, and for once Sherlock had been unable to disagree). The empty bowl was still at his elbow as he scanned the grimmest set of faces he’d seen since this same group of people had met to come to terms with the fact that, yes, there were such things as vampires, and one of them had bitten Mary 

 _Mary._ He pressed his fingertips together as he thought of her. Oh, she had been _clever_. Especially about John. 

Who was looking at him queryingly now that he’d finished explaining the situation to the others. Sherlock straightened fractionally in his seat, cleared his throat. 

“I can tell you now whilst the sun is coming up; I may not be able again,” he said. “I don’t intend to become a vampire. It will be inconvenient, to say the least, to only be able to cross running water at full and slack tide.” He allowed himself a little smirk. That would render him almost immobile in a city like London, crisscrossed as it was with waterways, both above ground and below. “And I rather like garlic. But what I intend counts for very little. If I am right, and we have Moriarty on the run, I may have years yet, but unless he is destroyed, that is only a temporary reprieve from the inevitable.” He held up a silencing hand; Molly was about to make an ill-advised attempt at comfort. “Save me your platitudes: of course, we’ll do our best to find him. There is a greater danger. His poison is in my blood, and so he can make me work against you – without my knowledge too, if it suits him. There may come a time when my continued existence will become more trouble than it’s worth.” He looked hard at each of them in turn. “You know what I am asking.” 

It was a terrible request, but a surprisingly easy one to make: after all, it was the only logical course, and logic was Sherlock’s map of the world. What was not quite so easy was watching the people he was making it of. John would not meet his eyes (or was it him who couldn’t meet John’s?). Lestrade gaped at him aghast (he knew it was the right thing but would be casting around for loopholes in a second. And Molly - sweet Molly Hooper who loved cats and musicals, whose jokes were often disturbing but never ill-intentioned, who cut up dead bodies for a living and knew, intimately, the worst people could do to each other and still had faith in humanity - she looked straight at Sherlock, her lips pressed into a thin, determined line, and nodded. 

 _Of course._ Sherlock should have seen that coming. He _knew_ Molly, knew how steady she was, and how sensible - he’d trusted her with the Fall, hadn’t he? - and he felt the slightest twinge of guilt when he realized exactly how much her willingness surprised him.

“I’ll leave it in your capable hands, then,” he said. Expressions of affection or gratitude didn’t come easily to him - he had very little use for them, being neither habitually affectionate or grateful - and so he hoped it was enough that he reached out, shakily, with his uninjured hand and gave her fingers a squeeze. “Thank you, Molly.” 

“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” she said, gently pulling her hand away. 

“We’ll do our best.” Sherlock smiled wryly. “It would be easier - safer - if you could leave me out of your plans, but we all know that’s not possible. You’ll just have to be wary of me. At some point, implicit trust may no longer be possible.”

“And you were such a trustworthy and un-secretive bastard to begin with,” said Lestrade. Pure bluster. He paused for a moment, thinking, trying for levity. “The invitation-only thing,” he said at last. “We’ve finally found a way to keep you out of New Scotland Yard.” 

“Not _yet_.” The last word snapped like a whip crack: Sherlock spat it out as if he were hurling it at Moriarty himself.

“Good.” Lestrade held Sherlock’s eye, very nearly glaring at him, exerting a silent promise that it had damn well better stay ‘not _yet_ ’ for a very long time. “Right. I have to get back to work. Molly, can I drop you at Bart’s?” 

“If it’s not too much trouble.” She bobbed her head in a little nod, fingers curling and uncurling on the strap of her handbag as a pink tinge appeared on her cheeks. 

They left together. Sherlock didn’t need any special powers of observation to notice the way Molly touched Lestrade’s arm on her way out, or the stricken, hit-between-the-eyes look he gave the back of her head when she passed him. Nor did he need to strain himself to deduce what all that meant. At least some good had come of this foul business. 

“I’d give them a month,” he said softly, when he heard their footfalls on the stairs. “Maybe less.” 

“Oh, come on! Now you’re just being mean.” John touched his shoulder in rebuke. It was, all things considered, a very light touch, his fingertips barely grazing the cloth of Sherlock’s shirt, and it put him in mind of nothing so much as pulled punches. 

“I meant a month until they make it official. Lestrade will hesitate because he’s just come through a nasty divorce, and Molly won’t rush him, not with all this going on. After that - who knows?” He got up, reaching out to John for support. “Now, I think you’ll be happy to hear this: I need to rest.”


	5. Chapter 5

The bedroom was dark when Sherlock awoke, and very quiet, which made it easier to hear what was going on in the rest of the flat. Hushed, hurried voices were coming from the front room, judging by the volume and quality of the sound. He could not quite make out the words, but it was clearly an argument. There was Molly’s voice, speaking low and fast, with a desperate sort of certainty, and John’s answered her, refuting every point with stops and starts between the words outlining his frustration like a lingual map until there was the sound of furniture, suddenly, sharply moved. That was John kicking the clients’ chair. Nothing else in that room would have made that wooden clatter.

Sherlock rolled on to his side, pulling the blankets closer about him. He could see the two of them as clearly as if he were in the other room himself. Molly would have come straight from work. She’d still have her coat on, her small hands would be clutching the strap of the handbag slung over her shoulder, and she would be alarmed at John’s outburst and slightly ashamed of herself for causing it, just now seeing the folly of trying to talk John around at this point, despite having only the very best of intentions. And John...Sherlock found that he had no wish to examine John’s emotions.

It was all too easy to draw comparisons to another argument, though John had been much angrier then - fairly enraged - and for good reason. That was when they had found Mary out, when she had let her careful mask slip just enough for Sherlock to see that Mrs. Watson was not who she appeared to be.

Sherlock closed his eyes, accessing the uneasy memory. The crux of the matter was that Mary had _let_ him see her for what she was. She had _allowed_ it to happen, knowing full well that Sherlock would never stand for John being deceived on that scale (small untruths during cases hardly counted, and were always explained later), or for him to unknowingly be put in danger as the husband of an ex-assassin (John walking into danger with his eyes open was another matter entirely - John _liked_ that, he lived for it).

And Sherlock had walked into it blindly. He’d been too furious to make deductions beyond the blatantly obvious, and too consumed by a vicious pleasure to think beyond the simple necessity of exposing her - for he had been jealous, hadn’t he? Despite all his attempts to demonstrate how _happy_ he was for the doctor and his wife, despite how hard he tried to actually _be_ happy for them, envy had been there, oily and nasty, like a thin film coating his teeth when he smiled, and Mary had seen it and used it like a cutting edge when she had needed to drive John away. In that, Sherlock could admire her.

She had made herself out to be truly terrible, highlighting the way she’d lied to cover up her past with Moriarty’s network and the lengths she’d gone to keep it hidden. (Sherlock thought she could have done without putting a bullet in his chest, though, and “Don’t tell John” still echoed in his nightmares on occasion - a twisted bit of reverse psychology, that.) Her intention had been to make John angry enough for the white heat of his rage to cauterize their separation, and an extra helping of Sherlock’s ruthlessness - condescendingly disguised with his “We’ll take the case” charade - should have ensured her success. What she had not counted on was John’s incredible, unwavering loyalty.

He had, with characteristic stoicism, been unable to speak of her for months, but he’d still opened his arms to her in the end, and Sherlock couldn’t blame Mary for falling back into them when he gave her the chance. She had loved John, there could be no doubt about that. And she had done her best to save him a bit of heartache, to push him away to keep him _safe_ before she succumbed to the bite; it wasn’t her fault that John had been too stubborn to go along with it. She had _tried._ That was more than could be said for Sherlock.

Shame twisted somewhere behind his ribs as he remembered how easy it had been to consider dragging John into damnation with him. If he had a shred of decency in him, if he cared for John at all, he would do well to follow Mary’s example.

Though, of course, he couldn’t use her exact methods. There were no skeletons in his closet that could shock John into leaving ( _skeletons, yes; enough to drive John Watson away at this point, no_ ), but he had other things at his disposal that could work just as well. Talents, one might say, that he’d had a lifetime to hone.

Sherlock curled the fingers of his right hand into a loose fist, making pain flare up from the rosary burn on his palm. He would have to start now, lay out the groundwork, so to speak. Funny to think that he would have found this much easier a few years ago.

In the front room, a few more words were exchanged - quieter, conciliatory ones on both sides - and Molly left, her light, quick footsteps gradually receding from Sherlock’s hearing as she let herself out.

It took John a little while longer to make his way to the first floor bedroom. (Of course he’d want to check on Sherlock after that - make sure he was still there, still breathing, still _him_.) Sherlock heard his heavier tread approaching, and he had time to shut his eyes before the wedge of light from the kitchen fell on him when John opened the door.

“You’re awake,” he said simply. He sounded tired on the surface, and guilty ( _or was it scared?_ ) underneath.

Sherlock blinked up at him. “Yes.”

John let out a long, hissing sigh, rather like an engine releasing steam. “So you heard that.”

“Not clearly, but I can guess: ‘You did it for Mary. You should be able to do it for him too, it’s what he’d want’.” Sherlock swallowed, and started to push. “Am I wrong?”

“Sherlock-”

“Why the hesitation, John? Sentiment?” He licked his lips, as if that would make his next words any easier. _Push harder._ “Surely you know better. You got over _her_ quickly enough. I doubt you’ll find it much harder to get over me.”

John’s knuckles turned white from the death grip he had on the doorknob. “Don’t be like that.”

_Please_ echoed silently at the end of that sentence. Good.

“You know what I’m like. I’m just trying to save you time.” He curled his lips into a sneer, thankful for the darkness. In the right lighting, John might have seen that there was no real venom behind it. “Isn’t that kinder?”

There was the briefest hesitation, an intake of breath as if John was preparing to say something, but he left in silence, the door barely making a sound as he closed it behind him.

It was a result, as these things went. Sherlock only wished he could feel better about it.


End file.
